Cheap loans for almost 45,000 companies
Commercial banks have so far issued loans amounting to 8.7 billion euros with an average interest rate of 4.76%, with the support of Hellenic Development Bank programs. This has been accomplished through the use of the loan guarantee or interest rate subsidy tools through which financing of €9.2 billion has been approved. That concerns 44,338 loans, which have been directed primarily to small and medium-sized enterprises that employ up to 50 employees.
The average lending rate (4.76%) for HDB loans is close to the eurozone average, which according to ECB data was 4.93% in July compared to an average business lending rate of 6.16% in this country, ensuring cheap liquidity through working capital or for investment loans.
The average interest rate of the loans that have been disbursed with the support of the HDB depends on the features of each program, the amount of the loan, the credit rating of each company, as well as the collateral, and from the aggregated data for all disbursements to date it emerges that 40.2% of the value of HDB’s portfolio concerns low-risk businesses, 48.7% regards medium-risk businesses and 11.1% high-risk businesses.
A total of 94.69% of borrowing businesses (41,986 loans) are considered very small or small, with a turnover of up to €10 million, but the loans they received represent 53.2% of all approved loans, or €4.9 billion.
Small and medium-sized enterprises with a turnover of €10-50 million (with 1,936 loans), which received €2.4 billion (25.71% of the total), had a significant share in lending, while the value of the 416 loans received by businesses with a turnover of more than €50 million added up to €1.9 billion.
Regarding the structure of loans based on the number of employees, it appears that the category of businesses with up to five employees received 27,412 loans (corresponding to 61.38% of the number of loans) amounting to €2.2 billion (24.18% of the value of approvals).
About 41.26% of the number of loans was directed to wholesale and retail trade, 12.3% to manufacturing, 10.48% to accommodation activities, 6.78% to businesses in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors, 6.69% to professional, scientific and technical activities, 5.42% to construction and 4.47% to activities related to transportation and storage.
